Wednesday, 9 October 2024
Recently I have been feeling down and have been fighting fear, frustration and anger.
Yesterday my left ear began being really sensitive to noise again and since then I have been hearing a faint crackling sound within my ear off and on throughout the day. Anything above a normal tone hurts my ear. I have also been feeling off, like something doesn't feel right inside of me, almost like a mix of nausea and unease.
But despite all that, today seemed like a better day compared to the past few.
I started the day feeling reluctant about going into work since I have been feeling off. I pushed myself to go though because I didn't want to miss any more time from work. I have taken over a challenging class as class teacher this year, and both my colleagues and the parents have told me how important structure and consistency are for the kids. Having missed the first four weeks of the school year, and given their turbulent first year at the school, I feel I can't take the risk and miss any more time.
It was a challenge to get through the day, especially because of noise level at school dealing with the 5th and 6th graders. But I feel that the lessons today went pretty well, actually better than most of the lessons in these classes so far.
Despite feeling very fatigued in the evenings, I also held a video conference this evening for about an hour and a half with several of the parents of my class.
But I notice that my patience seems short and I get easily frustrated. While I keep it under control at work, I find myself feeling moody at home.
Friday, 25 October 2024
At the tail end of fall break, I am both excited and nervous about returning to work and teaching. The break has been a bit helpful in getting me to relax a bit, but has been full of ups and downs.
With regards to the palsy, I used the time effectively to get seen by an ENT physician, a neurologist, and an eye doctor. Through the ENT physician, I not only received a type of laser radiation therapy targeting the left side of my face and throat, but also got infusions with saline solution and cortisone. I am relieved that my hearing has not been affected by this condition. The neurologist had ordered me to get an MRI, which I had done during the break. Luckily, it returned negative results. Lastly, the eye doctor confirmed that I was taking good care of the eye on the effected side of my face.
During this time, though, my son got sick with gastroenteritis and even needed to spend two nights over in the hospital in order to recover.
I am nervous about starting work again as I found the experience before the break pretty stressful. The 6th grade class I have taken over was often relatively loud and painful to my ear. I hope that things will settle down a bit when I start next week.
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Fall break ended two days ago and the school week is off and running. I put a good deal of time into planning for my class, to tackle a challenging class dynamic, and have begun to see it slowly pay off. But the time change on Sunday has made me feel fatigued and I went to bed around 8:30 PM yesterday, as opposed to my usual time between 11 PM and 12 am. My left ear has been on the fritz as I frequently hear a "crackling" noise, especially after the loud lessons with my class. I have finally booked an appointment with a psychotherapist (after a month of trying) for this upcoming Friday and I am really looking forward to speaking to someone to develop a game plan as to moving forward with this condition. I try to remain as optimistic as I can despite the prognosis from the neurologist that it could take up to a year before the condition is better. Hearing the (ENT) doctor inform me about plastic surgery options for correcting my face didn't grant me a lot of positivity, but I refuse to accept this fate and will continue to wait and see where I stand in six months.
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
I wish I could snap my fingers and suddenly return to normal, because I am tired of my face being like this. I am tired of my hearing being so sensitive and frequently hearing a "crackling" noise in my ear. I am beyond done with the discomfort of having my left eye open all of the time. I really am done with being stared at in public. And I am especially done with not being able to eat or drink normally. It has been 79 days, and despite having gone through a variety of treatments and being seen by doctors, there hasn't been a single sign of improvement. At this point, it's really just a matter of waiting and patience. I understand it can take up to six month (so until February 2025) before the palsy improves. Until then, I remain optimistic by distracting myself as much as I can with family and work. After that, corrective plastic surgery comes into question to help me gain control of my muscles in my face again.
As it has been a challenging time between the palsy and other personal events over the past year, I have been seeking out a psychologist now for about month, but with no luck. The ones that are local aren't able to take on any new patients. There is a nation-wide patient service available here in Germany, but the psychologists that come up in their database are all too far away or only have availability in the morning when I have to work. I hope to find one soon.
Wearing an eye-patch isn't all that it has cracked up to be, since my depth perception is off and I am not allowed to drive or ride a bike.
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
There are days where I notice how slack the paralyzed side of my face feels. My cheek feels loose, making me very self-conscious about how I sound when I speak. The students at school homed in on how I pronounced the letter 'f' while I was speaking in front of the class yesterday. I said the word Schiffsbau (German for 'ship-building') and my 'f' sounded like an 's', making the word sound like Schissbau, which roughly translates to 'shit building'.
When I wake up, the skin under my left eye seems very puffy, giving my eye an even more distorted appearance.
In addition to my hearing sensitivity and occasional crackling noise in my left ear, I also now hear an occasional crackling noise in my right ear (on my healthy side).
I still get stares, sometimes very intense ones, when I am out in public. I have always been self-conscious, so I am really trying my best to not feel bothered by it. On Halloween, when I was walking home from the train station, I passed by two young guys and one called out "argh" like a pirate when I walked by them.
My depth perception is still off. I occasionally miss steps while walking up and down stairs, almost tripping down the stairs today while at school. I was taking my dog out one morning last week into our yard early in the morning before work, and I missed the last step coming down the stairs off of our patio, hurting my ankle.
It is challenging to find time during the work day to put eye ointment or eye drops in my eyes. I have been very busy the past few weeks teaching, that my eye has been irritated more often, feeling scratchy and painful.
It is also a struggle dealing with the noise and how loud the students are at school due to the noise sensitivity. I have bought a decibel measuring device for the classroom and have hung up noise level charts to raise their awareness, but they haven't had much of an effect on the students' loudness so far. I hope that they will soon become more aware of the issue.
Despite all of the setbacks, I am trying to remain as optimistic as possible.